This is my personal blog. I was Branch Secretary of Lambeth UNISON from 1992 to 2017 and a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, the public service union (www.unison.org.uk) from 2003 to 2017.
I am Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party and of the Sussex Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
Neither the Labour Party nor UNISON is responsible for the contents of this personal blog. (Nor is my employer!)

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Wednesday, July 13, 2011

No enemies in the room

Newly elected local government NEC member, Kathy Smith, sought to raise - at the close of today's meeting of the UNISON NEC - concerns about the Regional supervision of the Bromley branch.

Whilst procedurally the President may well have been correct that this matter could not be pursued to a conclusion as a "matter arising" from the previous minutes, the majority of my NEC colleagues who voted to move to "next business" will need to consider further how we give effect to the statement of our General Secretary, made at our Conference in Manchester, that he had "no enemies within the hall."

We need not to have enemies in the meeting room either - and the new Development and Organisation Committee needs to oversee the rapid return to democratic control of the branches under supervision. It may be that we need also a clearer process for taking branches into supervision.